In only 12 years, from 1987 to 1999, world population increased from 5 to 6 billions. In the last years its growth has diminished, both in a relative way, and in a absolute way, due to a reduction in fertility faster that the one expected in the last years. Nevertheless, great differences between areas and nations exist; the poorest countries are the ones in which the growth is more extreme.The predictions of world population reaching 9–10 billions at the middle of (...) the next century could come true, followed by a stabilisation; the danger of an uncontrolled growth of the world population would be, in this way, avoided. The question of the credibility of these predictions, and of which alternatives can exist, belongs not only to the scientific debate. As it happens in social and economical planning, ethical choices, which in this case are definitely appointed to the peaceful cohabitation between nations and to their maximum welfare, must be faced. The debate will focus on how to reach them. (shrink)

Editorial - Dossiê: Religião, Política e Violência.

A renowned scholar investigates the "human crisis" that Albert Camus confronted in his world and in ours, producing a brilliant study of Camus's life and influence for those readers who, in Camus's words, "cannot live without dialogue and friendship. As France--and all of the world--was emerging from the depths of World War II, Camus summed up what he saw as 'the human crisis'. 'We gasp for air among people who believe they are absolutely right, whether it be in their machines (...) or their ideas. And for all who cannot live without dialogue and the friendship of other human beings, this silence is the end of the world.' In the years after he wrote these words, until his death fourteen years later, Camus labored to address this crisis, arguing for dialogue, understanding, clarity, and truth. When he sailed to New York, in March 1946--for his first and only visit to the United States--he found an ebullient nation celebrating victory. Camus warned against the common postwar complacency that took false comfort in the fact that Hitler was dead and the Third Reich had fallen. Yes, the serpentine beast was dead, but "we know perfectly well," he argued, "that the venom is not gone, that each of us carries it in our own hearts." All around him in the postwar world, Camus saw disheartening evidence of a global community revealing a heightened indifference to a number of societal ills. It is the same indifference to human suffering that we see all around, and within ourselves, today. (shrink)

This Element is on new developments in the psychology of reasoning that raise or address philosophical questions. In traditional studies in the psychology of reasoning, the focus was on inference from arbitrary assumptions and not at all from beliefs, and classical binary logic was presupposed as the only standard for human reasoning. But recently a new Bayesian paradigm has emerged in the discipline. This views ordinary human reasoning as mostly inferring probabilistic conclusions from degrees of beliefs, or from hypothetical premises (...) relevant to a purpose at hand, and as often about revising or updating degrees of belief. This Element also covers new formulations of dual-process theories of the mind, stating that there are two types of mental processing, one rapid and intuitive and shared with other animals, and the other slow and reflective and more characteristic of human beings. The final topic covered is the new developments and rationality. (shrink)

Medical students will face ethical issues throughout their lives as doctors. The present study aims to investigate medical students’ opinions on controversial ethical issues and factors associated with these opinions.

Schelling's 1806 polemic against Fichte, and his last major work on the philosophy of nature. The heat of anger can concentrate the mind. Convinced that he had been betrayed by his former collaborator and colleague, Schelling attempts in this polemic to reach a final reckoning with Fichte. Employing the format of a book review, Schelling directs withering scorn at three of Fichte’s recent publications, at one point likening them to the hell, purgatory, and would-be paradise of Fichtean philosophy. The central (...) bone of contention is the understanding of nature: Fichte sees it as lifeless matter in motion, sheer opposition to be overcome, while Schelling waxes poetic in his defense of a living, organic nature of which humanity is a vital part. Indeed, we do not know ourselves without understanding our connection to nature, argues Schelling, anticipating many thinkers in contemporary environmental ethics. Dale E. Snow’s introduction sets the stage and explains the larger context of the conflict, which was already visible in the correspondence of the two philosophers, which broke off by 1802. Notes are included throughout the text, providing background information and identifying the many references to Fichte. Dale E. Snow is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Maryland and the author of Schelling and the End of Idealism, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

The creative process has the potential to increase wellbeing and foster human flourishing (Dolan and Metcalfe, 2012 ; Forgeard and Eichner, 2014 ; O’Brien and Murray, 2015 ; Conner et al., 2018 ; Kaufman, 2018 ), yet has received little attention in the humanistic management literature. In this paper, we present three experiments showing that idea originators experience greater relationship conflict with counterparts who have committed perceived “idea theft”, i.e., proposed identical or related ideas. We test a model that identifies (...) a mechanism—self-threat—that mediates the relationship between idea theft and relationship conflict and identifies an intervention to ameliorate that self-threat via self-affirmation. Study 1 demonstrates the idea originator’s attribution of malign attributions to, and negative moral emotions toward, the counterpart. Study 2 demonstrates that idea originators ostracize both those who propose identical ideas and those who propose merely related ideas. In Study 3, evidence for self-threat as the mechanism underlying the negative relational consequences is provided via both a direct test of mediation as well as via moderation by self-affirmation. Our research contributes to the nascent idea theft literature and suggests a way to reduce its negative consequences. (shrink)

Bio-heteronormative conceptions of the family have long reinforced a nuclear ideal of the family as a heterosexual marriage, with children who are the genetic progeny of that union. This ideal, however, has also long been resisted in light of recent social developments, exhibited through the increased incidence and acceptance of step-families, donor-conceived families, and so forth. Although to this end some might claim that the bio-heteronormative ideal is not necessary for a social unit to count as a family, a more (...) systematic conceptualization of the family—the kind of family that matters morally—is relatively underexplored in the philosophical literature. This paper makes a start at developing and defending an account of the family that is normatively attractive and in line with the growing prevalence of non-conventional families and methods of family-formation. Our account, which we call a constitutive-affirmative model of the family, takes the family to be constituted by an ongoing process of relevant affective and affirmative relations between the putative family members. (shrink)

Each month brings new scientific findings that demonstrate the ways in which human activities, from resource extraction to carbon emissions, are doing unprecedented, perhaps irreparable damage to our world. As we hear these climate change reports and their predictions for the future of Earth, many of us feel a sickening sense of _déjà vu_, as though we have already seen the sad outcome to this story. Drawing from recent scholarship that analyzes climate change as a form of “slow violence” that (...) humans are inflicting on the environment, _Climate Trauma_ theorizes that such violence is accompanied by its own psychological condition, what its author terms “Pretraumatic Stress Disorder.” Examining a variety of films that imagine a dystopian future, renowned media scholar E. Ann Kaplan considers how the increasing ubiquity of these works has exacerbated our sense of impending dread. But she also explores ways these films might help us productively engage with our anxieties, giving us a seemingly prophetic glimpse of the terrifying future selves we might still work to avoid becoming. Examining dystopian classics like _Soylent Green _alongside more recent examples like _The Book of Eli_, _Climate Trauma_ also stretches the limits of the genre to include features such as _Blindness_, _The Happening_, _Take Shelter_, and a number of documentaries on climate change. These eclectic texts allow Kaplan to outline the typical blind-spots of the genre, which rarely depicts climate catastrophe from the vantage point of women or minorities. Lucidly synthesizing cutting-edge research in media studies, psychoanalytic theory, and environmental science, _Climate Trauma _provides us with the tools we need to extract something useful from our nightmares of a catastrophic future. (shrink)

El propósito de este texto es ofrecer una visión general de la relación entre nación e historia en los debates que se generaron por parte de los historiadores y otros intelectuales de las ciencias sociales a finales del siglo XIX y durante gran parte del siglo XX. La reflexión central que se plantea consiste entonces en estudiar y mostrar cómo al mismo tiempo que las naciones modernas eran objeto de un proceso de redefinición política, en el escenario intelectual de las (...) ciencias sociales, y en particular de los historiadores, fueron apareciendo también un conjunto de debates y obras que intentaban problematizar y someter a consideración las relaciones que pretendían establecerse entre la nación y la historia como un elemento que las justificaba. (shrink)

O objetivo deste texto é explorar aproximações e divergências no pensamento de Paulo Freire e Ivan Illich na forma como eles vêem a relação entre educação e transformação social. Acredita-se que a retomada da polêmica Freire e Illich sobre o problema educação e transformação social pode contribuir para melhor compreender e esclarecer a verdadeira natureza desse problema, já clássico na história da educação moderna.

REVISTA EDUCAÇÃO E FILOSOFIA é uma publicação semestral do Departamento de Pedagogia da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia. Este número é o primeiro fruto de um sonho antigo e de um inconformismo com a falta de um veículo como este, entre nós. Pretendemos incentivar e divulgar trabalhos de natureza interdisciplinar nas áreas de Educação e Filosofia. Mas, se a Revista vier a ter uma linha preferencial — e isto depende muito mais dos nossos colaboradores, que da direção — essa linha não (...) será exclusiva nem excludente, pois a Revista estará aberta às mais diversas correntes de pensamento, não se fechando, pois, com quaisquer grupos. Isto é consequência de nossa visão de Universidade como lugar onde se deve estimular a heterogeneidade de tendências e o debate. Entendemos que uma filosofia que propugne posições dogmáticas inviabiliza o debate sobre seus próprios pressupostos, deixando de ser filosofia para tornar-se mera ideologia. Ademais, a discussão de questões de princípio tem razão de ser e há momentos em que apenas ela pode contribuir para a superação de impasses de ordem teórica ou prática, sobretudo nas ciências sociais; somente uma abordagem crítica — o que equivale a dizer: sem preconceitos — pode contribuir para os debates de questões fundamentais tanto para a filosofia, quanto para a educação, ou ainda quanto para uma filosofia de educação. A REVISTA EDUCAÇÃO E FILOSOFIA deve representar um fórum de permanentes debates aberto a todo educador, todo pensador e, sobretudo, a todo pensador-educador. Propomo-nos a acolher e divulgar contribuições que sintetizem os resultados de investigações empíricas e teóricas e de projetos práticos, preferencialmente, mas não exclusivamente, desenvolvidos na região do Triângulo Mineiro. Dentro do princípio de que o caráter objetivo e preciso do conhecimento científico não é incompatível com os conformismos diante das injustiças de toda ordem, pretendemos, ainda, ser um estímulo aos balanços críticos. A REVISTA EDUCAÇÃO E FILOSOFIA é a soma do que temos e somos, mas será um veículo para atingirmos aquilo que queremos ser e ter. Deverá abrir caminho para a reflexão filosófica, a reflexão sobre educação, a reflexão sobre o ensino da filosofia e possibilitará o diálogo com os pensadores e educadores presentes e pretéritos visando à construção do futuro. Nós não teríamos sido justos se olvidássemos o empenho da professora Carmelita Vieira dos Santos, chefe do Departamento de Pedagogia para que, diante de tantos cortes de recursos, fossem mantidos aqueles destinados à revista. Nossos agradecimentos também à professora Marly Bernardes de Araújo, diretora do Centro de Ciências Humanas e Artes. Ao Conselho do Departamento de Pedagogia, nossa gratidão por ter acolhido a Revista. (shrink)

Twilight Zone and Philosophy attempts to bring the insights and paradoxes of Rod Serling's project to contemporary audiences through a variety of philosophical perspectives"--Publisher.

Monograph in six chapters, plus introductory essay, conclusions, two appendixes, notes, and bibliography.